This paper is concerned with the educational‐philosophical implications of Michel Foucault's work: It poses the question whether Michel Foucault's remarks surrounding ‘limit‐experience’ can be placed in an educational context and provide an alternative view regarding the relationship that we maintain to ourselves. As a first step, the significance of ‘limit‐experience’ for Foucault's historicophilosophical investigations, his ‘critical ontology of the present’, is examined. Far from being an external marking point, it can be shown that limit‐experience lies at the centre of Foucault's (...) approaches to the history of thought. As a second step, the resistance of Foucault's work against its integration into the educational realm is examined: Coming from Foucault's ‘limit‐experience’, it is possible to problematize a specific way we speak about learning and education. As a subsequent step, this resistance is given a constructive turn: The practices of writing and reading (related to limit‐experience) could provide a valuable irritation for philosophers of education by exposing them to the challenges of ‘singularity’ in education. It is argued that specifically the writing practice could be helpful for educational studies in order to inquire into the complex relationship of subject, power, and truth within the educational realm. Finally, the possibilities and difficulties of provoking such a writing practice are mentioned. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine Foucault's discourse-oriented theory, his explanation of the power-knowledge relation, his notions of technologies of domination and technologies of the self, and the Foucauldian critique of the assumed neutrality of education and school counseling. The theory that we shall seek to elaborate here puts considerable emphasis on Foucault's theory of power, his notion of discourse, his understanding of subjectivity, and his analysis of how power relations and discourses shape processes of ethical self-constitution. The (...) results of the current study converge with Besley's prior research on Foucault's analysis of education, his theory of language and social power, his non-essentialist conception of identity, and his emphasis on the centrality of truth in relation to the self. (shrink)

This paper aims to question anew the popular and supposedly self-evident affirmation of education, in its modern incarnation as in its historical notion. The “naive” questions suggest that we have recently taken for granted that education ought to be for the masses, that it ought to be upbringing, and that it is better than ignorance. Drawing on the tradition that calls such an understanding of education into question, the author shows that the hidden costs of disregarding such reflection end up, (...) camouflaged and smuggled, taxing the current debates regarding generally accepted education strategies. The characteristic feeling of the currently accepted model of education being in chronic crisis is less a testament to an absence of alternative approaches than to a lack of thorough self-reflection. (shrink)

Research that explores ethics can help educational communities engage twenty-first century crises and work toward ecologically and socially just forms of life. Integral to this research is an engagement with social theory, which helps educators imagine our shared worlds differently. In this paper I present two theoretical-methodological directions for educational research that centres ethics: Ethics and subjectivity; and Ethics-in-assemblage. While both approaches might be seen as commensurable, they can also be seen as quite divergent. Using Michel Foucault’s later work on (...) subjectivity and ethics, as well as recent work in Anthropology, I present a methodological direction for research into ethical subjectivity, how students come to see themselves as self-reflective ethical actors. Relevant here is the tension between ethics and politics, individual and collective modes of being, as both are crucial to both struggles for justice on a damaged planet. The second direction involves a sociomaterialist approach that employs Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘assemblage’ as well as Karen Barad’s notion ‘entangled responsibility’ to show that ethics can also be seen to co-emerge with/in phenomena that exceed human relations. In short, exploring ethics through educational research means simultaneously examining ethics as subjectivity and ethics as co-emergent larger assemblages/phenomena. (shrink)

This dissertation is, first, an examination of the coherence and consistency of Michel Foucault’s work with respect to its development and an examination of his ethos, a product of conscious self-construction. Second, this work is an exploration of ethical techniques. The goal of the dissertation is to discover an ethos that takes into account the best contemporary critical attitudes and techniques of ethical selfconstruction. The first chapter begins with a discussion of the development of Foucault’s archaeological method. Discussion of some (...) problems with structuralism, his genealogical method, and finally his movement towards an ethical program follows. The method for the dissertation will be exploratory and critical. The second chapter develops a line of thinking about the development of freedom in Kant and Foucault. Power relations are a persistent context in which selfconstruction takes place. Resistance to power relations marks the beginning of freedom, which requires testing and moving beyond the limits of socially constructed selves. The Quakers display a model of structured resistance to enclosing authorities. John Woolman provides an example of ethical self-construction. The third chapter explores Foucault’s ethical project by examining ancient Greco-Roman and Christian technologies of the self, and relates those projects to ethical self-construction through writing. This exploration shows continuity in the product of writing from Ancient through modern writers. The fourth chapter develops a postmodern ethos through an examination of weak ontology. James Rachels’ ethical programme is a model for a postmodern technology of the self. The resulting technique offered provides a vulnerability to facticity while retaining the best ethical principles and critical reasoning. This is illustrated in Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory. Foucault’s ethos is a clear precursor to modern technologies of the self that take the exploration of knowledge with humility into account. (shrink)